The Wild Road

by Jennifer Roberson

  “Heal faster,” he muttered. He looked down the long line of cairns and saw that his helpers had lost enthusiasm and speed. The smallest children now dragged their buckets, and the adults stacked stones more slowly than before. Rhuan could not blame any of them. It was not work anyone would seek out or find particular pride in. But there were plenty more cairns to build, and he would need all his helpers. And others, if they were willing to come.

  The day turned gloomy. Clouds had come in from the east, smothering sunlight. Rhuan eyed them critically, then lifted both hands to his mouth to make a funnel. “Done for the day! Rain’s coming!”

  A familiar voice from behind sounded annoyed. “Trust me to arrive just as everyone else departs.”

  He turned, smiling. But the smile faded, replaced with alarm. “What’s wrong? Are you ill? You look ill.”

  Ilona wore a deep indigo wrap pulled tightly around her torso, arms crossed and shoulders drawn up against cold. Her mouth sketched brief irony. “Such flattery. No, I’m not ill. I had a very difficult reading earlier. And I’m cold.” She shrugged. “A good night’s sleep is all I need.”

  He frowned. The day was warm, not cold, not even cool. The steamy oppression of monsoon humidity was rising. The air was heavy with it. “Why are you cold?”

  “I don’t know. I just am.” As had he, she studied the clouds. “Looks like the rain will last through dinner.” She shivered. “Oh, I hate this time of the year. Everything is always so muddy. I’m tired of dragging my skirts through mud, tired of knocking it off my boots, tired of having boots sucked off my feet by mudholes. I’m tired of any number of other things.”

  It was not characteristic of Ilona to be querulous. Rhuan waggled his brows, hoping to replace her annoyance with laughter. “Tired of me?”

  “Hah.” She said it with muted irony that faded almost instantly. “There’s something I must ask of you. But let’s go to my wagon first. I’ve built a nice big fire beneath the awning. Tea will be quite hot when we return . . . perhaps it will thaw me out. I had considered a bath in the river, but not now. Maybe I should just stand outside and let the rain wash me clean.” She tugged one of his sleeves. “Let’s go, shall we?”

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the grove. “There are means other than tea for thawing out.”

  “Of course there are, and I expect we’ll get to that later this evening. Tea first, and there’s also something we need to speak about.”

  “What is it?”

  Ilona shivered. “There’s too much to be said, to say it in the rain.”

  A large raindrop struck Rhuan’s head. And another. He glanced up. “Well, we’d best hurry. Or you’ll be colder yet.” He slipped his arm from around her shoulder, took her left hand in his, and pulled her into a run toward the grove.

  AUDRUN COULD NOT count the days. She lived in the haze of fever. She had a vague recollection of being lifted off the cot so bedding could be changed. She was given fresh nightclothes, and someone both fed her and bathed her forehead with a cool, wetted cloth. Her world had become limited to the sleeping chamber, shadowed by day, black by night. In the day, she heard voices. At night she dreamed.

  She dreamed of Karadath’s nightmare.

  Of the infant taken from her.

  ILONA FEARED SHE might fall down and be dragged through dampening grass. “Wait!” she cried, trying to keep up. “Rhuan, I can’t run as fast as you . . . and besides, I’m wearing skirts!” Skirts that were weighted with moisture along the hems. Already the folds of fabric slapped through and around her legs. She tried to dig in her heels to halt them both, but her boot soles slid forward. She nearly sat down in wet grass and soil. “Rhuan—slow down!”

  He slowed to a jog and, grinning, turned his head toward her. “It’s raining.”

  “I know that. I suspect everyone in the near vicinity knows that. But it does me no good at all if I fall down, does it? I’ll be wet one way or the other.”

  “Here.” He stopped altogether, pulled her close, and flashed his dimples at her—something he used with devastating success. “This may help.”

  He leaned close to kiss her, but she placed the flat of her hand against his chest. “I’m wet, I’m cold, and I wish to have tea. I long for tea. If we stand out here in the rain I’ll become even wetter and colder, and the tea will be delayed even longer.”

  “It was your idea to stop.”

  She brushed a raindrop from her cheek. “I didn’t mean we should stop. I meant we should slow down. There is a marked difference between the two.” The rain began to fall more heavily. She screwed up her face against it. “Let’s go, then. It will be worse before it’s better.” Then she realized he was no longer looking at her. He was looking beyond her, beyond his row of stick markers. Toward the deepwood. She swung around to look as well. “What is it? I don’t see anything.” And she didn’t, not out of the ordinary, just the crowded, towering line of the edge of Alisanos.

  “Ilona, go.” His tone was urgent, and his hands on her arms closed so tightly as to hurt. “Go to Mikal’s. Tell him it’s coming. I have to make sure the children who helped me are safely back with their parents.”

  “Tell him what’s coming—?” Yet she broke it off. She knew quite well he was deadly serious. “Alisanos.”

  “Yes,” he said tersely, releasing her arms. “A storm. We have little time for a warning. Go, Ilona.”

  Rhuan turned and ran from her.

  Ilona, too, turned, and ran from him.

  Chapter 27

  BRODHI LED THE party out of the wide settlement clearing into a passageway that was very nearly a tunnel, so thick were the trees on either side.

  While she felt it possible to ride two abreast, Bethid did not do so. Nor did Timmon and Alorn. Brodhi was followed by Alorn, then Timmon, then Jorda’s wagon and, behind him, the farmsteader. Bethid brought up the rear.

  The path was deeply shadowed. As she looked upward, her impression was of branches reaching toward one another across the passageway. It struck her that the trees leaned as if yearning to touch, to intertwine, to lock limbs; to wind leaves and roots together in what Bethid thought of as a discomfiting display of arboreal intercourse.

  She shuddered, banishing the image. Not what she wanted to spend time envisioning.

  Ahead lay sky and horizon. She could see the end of the passageway. It broadened into grasslands beneath bright sun. Already she felt better. Certainly safer.

  Until she heard Brodi shouting. She saw him wheel his mount to face the short line of horses and wagons behind him.

  “Go!” he cried. “Get out of here. As quickly as you can, get out of this. Now.”

  Bethid saw Timmon and Alorn set their horses to a gallop, heading straight for the break at the end of the passageway. But Jorda and the farmsteader drove wagons with two teams hitched. It took time to hurry the horses.

  She heard Jorda’s raspy shout, the slap of reins brought down upon broad backs. The farmsteader was slower off the mark, but he, too, began shouting at the teams, wasting no time now. It did briefly cross her mind to ride on past the two wagons to reach safety more quickly, but she forebore. Not only was it selfish, but the teams needed nothing to distract their attention, and Churri going by at a gallop would do precisely that. So she hung back, fighting the urge, quietly telling Churri to mind his manners.

  Churri did not. Churri, in fact, leaped straight up into the air, kicking powerfully behind. Bethid retained her seat and attempted to rein him in. Then she saw the cause of Churri’s reaction.

  After a frozen moment of shock, Bethid shouted, “Brodhi!” Surely he could do something. Shoia or Alisani, surely he could do something. He knew the deepwood. Ahead of her the break widened. She badly wanted to ride by, but it was particularly narrow here and the two wagons and teams were in her way. Churri stomped and k
icked. “Brodhi!”

  In front of her, roots snaked across the ground from trees on both sides. She saw the motion, saw how the roots quested after Churri’s hooves. The wagons ahead now were free of the tree-hedged passage, but Churri refused to follow. He backed up in a humping motion, pushing more deeply into the shadows.

  Bethid twisted in the saddle, briefly looking behind. Roots there as well. When she turned back, she found Brodhi close by. He leaped from the saddle, then knelt. A knife glinted in his hand.

  Distracted by Churri’s panicked behavior, Bethid caught only a glimpse of Brodhi’s actions. The knife flashed again. Blood ran from his hand—she saw that. She saw, too, how he caught a writhing tree root and clamped his hand around it.

  “Go, Bethid! Now!”

  She gave Churri a taste of her heels. Even as she went by Brodhi, his horse broke away and went with her, running shoulder to shoulder with Churri.

  It crossed her mind to turn back; Brodhi was now on foot. Being in the saddle provided some manner of temporary safety, but he was in contact with the ground, holding a root in the air as if it were a serpent to be strangled.

  A horrifying shriek broke the air. Then another, and another. It was not in the least human.

  Churri ran. And as he did, as he broke free of the shadowed passage into the bright grasslands, Brodhi’s mount stayed close, as if finding comfort in Churri’s proximity. Bethid stretched as far out of the saddle as she could without losing her balance. It took two tries, but she captured the reins of Brodhi’s horse. She pulled up sharply, spun Churri away from the other horse, who followed along as Bethid now leaned away from him, most of her weight in the right stirrup. It was Brodhi she wanted to see. Brodhi she was worried about. That sound . . .

  Then he walked out of the shadow into the light, sliding his knife back into its sheath. Bethid saw blood running from his hand. “Are you all right?”

  Brodhi approached and took the reins from her hand.

  “Brodhi—are you all right? What did you do?”

  He held his bloodied palm up. Blood ran down it, down to the ground, and she saw the grass burn away into ash as droplets struck it. “That,” he said.

  The cut in his hand was deep. “You’ll need that wrapped.”

  Brodhi shook his head. “It will take care of itself.” He swung up into his saddle.

  Bethid looked beyond him into the threshold of the narrow passageway. The shrieking had stopped. She felt her mouth drop open. “It was the roots making that noise!”

  “When dying, things often do.”

  She turned back to him. “You burned them.”

  “Just two. One from each side.” He gathered his reins. “Time we went on.”

  “‘One from each side,’” she echoed. “I don’t understand.”

  “Poison from a snake bite can run all through the body,” he said simply.

  Bethid said it slowly, half in disbelief. “So you poisoned the roots.”

  Brodhi did not reply. He said something to Darmuth, who nodded after a moment and turned back the way they had come, returning to the passageway. It baffled her. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but Brodhi merely turned his horse and left her, rode past the two wagons, past Alorn and Timmon, to the head of the line once again.

  Bethid scowled after him. She wanted badly to shout, but her fellow couriers had no idea what Brodhi was. Nor did Jorda and the farmsteader, as far as she knew. So instead of shouting she rode up to the head of the line and joined him there, speaking quietly, but in no wise less demanding. “If you can do that,” she began, “why not do it to the rest of Alisanos?”

  Brodhi was truly surprised. “I carry no more blood in my body than you do. So much drained would kill me long before there was any appreciable difference in the health of Alisanos.”

  She glanced briefly at Timmon and Alorn, out of earshot. She lowered her voice anyway. “But you wouldn’t stay dead.”

  His expression was annoyed. “To burn enough to make a difference, I would have to be in Alisanos. There, even I can die. And no, we don’t resurrect. Not in Alisanos.”

  After a moment, she said, “Oh.” Then another question, one that set a chill in her belly: “Will we be able to get back to the settlement? Or will the passageway be closed off?”

  “No, it won’t be closed off; I sent Darmuth back to Rhuan. He can do the same.”

  “Darmuth can? Or Rhuan?” She paused. “Or both?”

  “Rhuan. And don’t ask me any more questions.”

  Bethid asked dryly, “Ever?”

  Brodhi looked at her from under lowered brows, then turned and rode on.

  Still grinning, Bethid fell in with Timmon and Alorn, contemplating what Brodhi had accomplished. Finally she said, “Huh,” and let it go.

  The skies were blue and sun streamed down. No hint of the deepwood remained, unless one turned to look back. Bethid did not.

  GILLAN SAT ON the bench just outside the living chamber as Omri, inside, tended his mother. He was bent over, head down, injured leg bared to the morning sunlight. It still made him sick to look at the irregular patch of scaled skin grafted onto the flesh of his calf. And it itched. He could not keep his fingers from it. Already he had peeled back a tiny section of the edges just from scratching. A dribble of clear fluid crawled down his calf, freed by the violence of his scratching.

  “Leave it be,” Omri said.

  Not having heard him approach, Gillan jerked upward in startlement, saw who it was, then reached down yet again to scratch.

  “Leave it be,” Omri repeated in a mild tone.

  “And if I don’t?” Gillan demanded. “If I keep scratching, can I rid myself of this?”

  Omri squatted in the doorway, lifting his face to the double suns. “Are you sure you wish to do that?”

  “Get rid of demon skin? Yes. I am quite sure!”

  “And have no leg?”

  “I can wrap it,” Gillan answered sharply. “I can wrap it, splint it, use it, even if the muscle and flesh is burned away.”

  Omri’s eyes remained closed. “What would you do then?”

  It burst from Gillan’s mouth, shaped by disbelief that such a question could be asked. “Leave.”

  Omri nodded. “Of course. It was a foolish question, wasn’t it?” His eyes opened, the same clear cider-brown as the karavan guide’s. “Well, shall we say that you can leave? Yes, I think so, by the expression on your face. So. You will attempt to make your way through Alisanos to the human world.”

  “I think—”

  But Omri overrode him. “One might wait,” he said, “until the road is built.”

  Gillan was horrified. “I can’t wait that long! The Mother only knows what will become of me if I wait.” He shook his head. “No. I can’t wait.”

  “You would risk your life, Gillan.”

  He had not expected Omri to know his name. After a moment, he said, “I will take that risk.”

  “And leave your kin behind?”

  “No,” Gillan declared, frowning. “No, that’s not what I meant. All of them will come, of course. Everyone.”

  “Your mother is ill.”

  It seemed obvious to him. “When she is well.”

  “And if Ellica refuses?”

  Gillan turned his head to look at the man squatting in the doorway. “Ellica wouldn’t refuse. Why should she? Why should any of us refuse? Are you simple, not to understand that?”

  “She has potted her tree.”

  All these questions annoyed Gillan. “She’s been lugging that tree all over ever since she uprooted it. She can lug it out of Alisanos.”

  “Once she finds her ring, the tree will be planted permanently. Then she will go nowhere.”

  Gillan frowned. “What ring? She doesn’t wear
a ring.”

  Omri looked at him fixedly. It made Gillan highly self-conscious. He took his hand away from the scaled area once again. He tried to meet Omri’s eyes with the same sharp focus, but failed.

  Omri said, “The wild magic will alter all of you.”

  Gillan bent and pulled the torn fabric of his trousers over the patch of hide, hoping that doing so would halt the scratching. What he needed was wrapping. “That’s what you say.”

  “I say the truth. She may well agree to go with you, but the tree takes precedence now.”

  Gillan hooted in amused disbelief. “My sister would never give up a chance to escape Alisanos because of a tree!”

  Omri shrugged. “Ask her.”

  “And Torvic and Megritte will come, too, and Mam, when she’s better.” Gillan nodded. “All of us. All of us will leave.”

  Omri stood up so quickly it took Gillan aback. And then he felt the hand close around a wrist. Omri jerked him to his feet. Gillan nearly fell because the suddenness of motion put added stress on the weakened leg. He remained standing because Omri held him up until he regained his balance.

  “It is possible,” Omri said, “that you could blunder your way back to the borderlands. But not all of you—sisters, brother, mother—would live to do so. Is that risk worth taking? That Megritte or Torvic might be stolen by beasts and demons? That Ellica might find her ring and have to stay? That your mother would refuse to leave the infant?” Omri shook his head. “You are not the sire, Gillan. Making these decisions isn’t for you to do.”

  Gillan hid desperation in anger. “Da isn’t here. Mam is ill. I’m the oldest. I have to make these decisions!”

  “It will not stop,” Omri said.

  “What won’t stop?”

  “Darmuth gave you substance of himself. Gave you living substance.”

  “I understand that, but—”

  “You do not,” Omri said. “You understand nothing. He gave you living substance, so you would not lose your leg.”

  “Yes, I know, but—”

  “Your leg itches because that substance is knitting itself into your bone.”